Surviving Yawalapiti number less than 200. That number can rise.

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Children From the Yawalapiti Tribe Prepare to Spear Fish

May 2012, as pointed out by Survival International’s Director General Stephen Corry, marked the twentieth birthday of Brazil’s Yanomami Park. The park is the largest area of protected rainforest in the world. It is also home ground to the Yanomami tribal people.

Settled along the Brazil/Venezuela border, the forest provides both home and sustenance to about 32,000 Yanomami. The Yanomami population is about 50 times larger than Brazil’s typical “uncontacted” Indian tribes.

For instance, the Yawalapiti people, who are pictured in this photo gallery, number only about 150 or so persons.

Click through this gallery of Yawalapiti portraits to glimpse an enduring way of life that will leave the world an impoverished place if it perishes.

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

A Yawalapiti Boy Jumps Into the Xingu River

In 1968, an anthropologist couple began making government proposals to protect the Yanomami land. A decade later, the Brazilian Committee for the Creation of the Yanomami Park (CCPY) was established. Survival International ensured the campaign grew to global proportions by linking with organizations in the United States and Europe.

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Yawalapiti Children Play in a Tree Over the Xingu River

In 1989, Survival International won the Right Livelihood Award and asked Yanomami spokesperson Davi Kopenawa to attend the awards ceremony in England as a representative of the Yanomami people. Davi’s first trip to international civilization brought a heightened awareness to the need to protect the Yanomami.

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Yawalapiti Men Wrestling

Within a few months of Davi’s international visit, the Brazilian government allowed support organizations into the Yanomami area. Survival International developed petitions while demonstrations spread around the world. In Prince Charles’s 1990 Kew Gardens speech, he declared that the situation with the Yanomami fit a “pattern of collective genocide.” Reacting to growing global pressure, Brazil’s new president responded that his country was “being crucified” internationally.

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

A Yawalapiti Man Stands Next to a Hut

Two years later, almost the entirety of the Yanomami territory was designated as an Indian park. However, threats to the Yanomami and the park continue. In the 1980s, the killer was disease; in the ’90s the Yanomami faced genocide. Survival International has responded to every attack along way.

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

A Youth Chief From the Yawalapiti Tribes Leads a Dance

Assaults on the Yanomami territory will probably continue for as long as so-called civilization needs new supplies of natural resources. The tribe will continue needing outside voices to plead its case.

One main obstacle that tribal communities face is the idea that they have no future. Defying predictions of their demise made in the 1970s and ’80s, the Yanomami Amazon Indians are still here today.

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Yawalapiti Men Playing the 'Urua' Bamboo Flute

Stephen Corry of Survival International insists that “the future of the tribal peoples depends on public opinion insisting the fundamental human right—to life, itself—must no longer be sacrificed on the altar of money.”

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

A Yawalapiti Man Prepares to Have His Body Painted

As Survival’s Corry states: “The fight is not about ‘cultural preservation’ or ‘modernity.’ ... The fight is about whether or not we really believe in the rule of law and the right to life, or whether they are just lip-service to ease our acceptance of the widespread injustices and cruel division which increasingly characterize the 21st century.”

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

A Yawalapiti Man Uses 'Timbo' Branches to Catch Fish

On the future of Brazil’s uncontacted tribal people, Corry says: “[Tribal people] won’t be saved unless enough people believe it’s possible, and are wiling to lend their voices to the networks and campaigns that exist to help them.”

Survival International’s human rights efforts are now focused on Brazil’s much smaller Awá tribe. With insufficient enforcement of laws imposed to protect Awá lands, the tribe is at risk of genocide. Watch this video of actor Colin Firth’s call to contact Brazil’s Minister of Justice and demand enforcement of laws to protect the Awá.

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